Looking down from the Giant Moreno Valley “M” on Box Springs Mountain

This past Sunday, my wife and I hiked up to the giant Moreno Valley “M” on Box Springs Mountain that overlooks Moreno Valley. This was her first trip all the way up to the “M”.

Here is a recap of our hike in pictures:

We started at Box Springs Mountain Park near Hidden Springs / Pigeon Pass in Moreno Valley…

The start of the trail we took…

This flower (and the insects – crane flies?) greeted us near the start of the trail…

Looking down at the parking lot, which kept getting smaller and smaller…

The “M” trail ahead…

The trail behind us so far…

Except for lizards of various colors, we didn’t see much wildlife…

Looking back at the trail…

A random flower on the way…

Looking up at the toughest part of the trail we followed. Note the faint outline of a trail going off to the left in the center of the picture. That trail takes you around this peak instead of up it. We missed that turn and kept climbing up…

Looking back down…

Trying to see the parking lot…

Still climbing up…

A look back down…

Another random lizard…

The moment we realized that we were climbing to the top of Box Springs Mountain instead of just to the “M”…

My favorite lizard of the day…

Looking down at the “M” and the “M” trail…

The view from above the “M”. Not the clearest day, but still a nice view…

A tiny lizard hanging out near the “M”…

A few weeds and wildflowers sticking out of the cracks of the “M”…

Standing on the “M”…

The trail down from the bottom of the “M” (the trail we intended to climb up but missed)…

The “M” is huge, and we had to hike down a bit to get the entire “M” in the picture…

There seem to be a few different trails that will take you up the initial peak or around it. On our way down we went around it (the trail I think we took the first time I hiked up to the “M” with our kids). If you hike to the “M”, you should study the routes before you go or go with someone who knows the way. The overgrowth is probably why we initially missed this trail…

Looking back up at the decision point to go up the initial peak or around it. This is the turnoff we missed on our way up…

The “M” from the 60 freeway…

Here are the routes we took according to my Garmin. The top line shows our route up, and the bottom line shows our route down. Per my Garmin, both routes were about 1.4 miles and 1,100-1,200 feet of elevation. We took two big bottles of water each, and wore trail shoes. It took us about 1.5 hours to climb, and about 1 hour to descend. We probably would have gone a little faster (not much) but we were taking pictures and had run a 5K the day before. We hiked on Sunday and I’m still sore on Tuesday morning.

For more info… rivcoparks.org

Looking for more hiking spots in and around the Inland Empire? Check out our list of Places to Hike in Riverside and Beyond.